Letter: Lake Oroville isn't really a lake; it's a reservoir

Why do they refer to the reservoir near Oroville as a "Lake." It's obviously a reservoir and was referred to as such in a large billboard placed at the site in 1957 prior to the start of construction as a "reservoir with a 3,500,000 acre-feet capacity" as a "key to the Feather River Project and part of a project to transport water as far South as San Diego, California."

A picture of the billboard and history is available in a book by Larry R. Matthews titled "The Building of the Oroville Dam." It's available at the local libraries. It would more closely fit the description of a "reservoir" than a "lake" as defined in my dictionary. In a recent picture in the Chico paper parts of it more resembles a stream than a "lake."